Category: Album reviews

THIS reviewer first saw Danko Jones opening for Hardcore Superstar in Manchester a decade ago. It was spellbinding, this swaggering braggart sweating all over the first 10 rows as he tore through impossibly catchy tales of road life.

It was like Robert Johnson on crack, the frontman an updated version of the travelling bluesmen who’ve been breaking instruments and hearts for around a century.

That night, Hardcore Superstar were reduced to Softcore Extras.

But the output of the three piece, completed by bassist John ‘JC’ Calabrese and drummer Atom Willard has since been … not patchy, but nonetheless a little disappointing in comparison to the world-beating potential they had at the beginning.

Like many straight-ahead rock bands, Danko Jones have failed to do justice to their visceral live show when they’ve walked through the studio doors. If you think this is a really good band on tape, wait til you see them live.

What’s left over is garage rock ditties that meld into one, without the hooks that make the songs above so memorable.

So, how many of the tracks on Rock And Roll Is Black and Blue (great colours by the way) would make the Danko Jones mega-album?

“Get Up” hops along nicely, bringing back the brag to Danko’s persona, so it’s in. “Legs” (you don’t need me to explain what that’s about, do you?) is an riff-heavy anthem in the “First Date” vain. It’s in too.

THERE are no hard and fast rules for an eighties hair metal band aiming to eke out a living this decade.

Some, like Motley Crue, have studiously avoided the nostalgia circuit and aligned themselves with young bands. Others, like Whitesnake and Def Leppard, have their pre-Sunset Strip heritage as English blues and metal (respectively) bands to fall back on.

There are those like Tyketto and Junkyard who have day jobs and tour in their vacation time. But for the likes of Ratt, Queensryche, Slaughter and LA Guns, it’s a fulltime job that now involves keeping their support base’s attention, one fan at a time, via social media and the speciallist press which has been chased out of the physical realm and onto the internet.

As many readers will be aware, until recently there were two LA Guns, one headed by Phil Lewis – the singer from the band’s late eighties heyday – and the other by founder Tracii Guns. To the relief of confused punters everywhere, Tracii’s version is apparently now on ice indefinitely.

Hollywood Forever is from Lewis’ version and it’s a timely reminder that this genre is still turning out quality material – even though the mainstream has long since moved on. If you liked the new Van Halen album, dig a bit deeper to the likes of LA Guns and you won’t be disappointed.

The biggest compliment you can pay a band from the big haired eighties (Motley Crue might consider it an insult) is that the album sounds like the last twenty years never happened. That is certainly the case here – Phil Lewis is probably the number one torch-barer, anywhere, for the Strip scene of the eighties and Hollywood Forever would have been a massive album back then.

Its biggest strength is its diversity. “Hollywood Forever”chops along metallically at at a cracking pace, “Eel Pie” is a sleazy grinder and “Sweet Mystery” is a dreamy radio ballad – and that’s just the first three tracks.

“Burn” is the sort of glammy blues lament meant to blast from convertables back when the riots were the number one topic of conversation in Lala Land and the “Vine Street Shimmy” is the sort of song that makes you visualise the video clip (all low-slung guitars and sneers) even though there actually isn’t one.

My favourites are “Dirty Black Night”, a monster of a chugga-chugga glam rock epic that dares you to listen passively without the slightest nod or smile, and “You Better Not Love Me” which is a perfect example of the commercial LA metal genre.

People thought these eighties metal bands recorded catchy songs to get on the radio and please the record company execs. Maybe they even used this excuse themselves as an alibi for “wimping out”. But the radio and the execs are long gone – and the hooks keep coming because that’s actually the sort of music these guys like.

There hasn’t been a tot of real grassroots guitar rock’n’roll to come out of Australia since Jimmy Barnes’ last record. A bit, but not much. In fact, there’s been very few enduring Aussie bands capable of blowing your head off since AC/DC. Paul Christie, Swanee and the Party Boys clearly want to change all that.

This, The Party Boys’ first studio album, finally transcends their ‘all-star been-around group’ facade with some original tracks that more than equal the classic rock they have always peddled with great commercial success.
And it’s been a long time coming. The Boys have seemingly been around for 100 years and had just about as many members. The Party Boys have become The Commercial Boys. Paul Christie’s “dream group” now packs as much financial punch on radio and vinyl as it always has on stage.
Their first release with CBS is a scorcher. Half an album of hand-picked covers and half of originals. It already has two hits, ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’ and ‘Hold Your Head Up’, both of which set the tone for a traditional hard rock album spiced with melody. The next single will be the semi-melodic original “Is This The Way To Say Goodbye”, a bluesy little track that Swanee croons in a style befitting brother Barnes himself. But the Boys potential for greatness is never better illustrated than on the remaining original ‘She’s A Mystery’, ‘Rising Star’, ‘Small Talk’ and particularly ‘It Could’ve Been You’.
‘She’s A Mystery’ and ‘It Could’ve Been You’ are the sort of songs most of the new American melodic metal brigade would kill to get their hands on. The other two originals are both up-front Aussie screamers mirror the influence of veteran rockers Alan Lancaster and John Brewster on the band.
Of course, the Party Boys would be castigated by their fans if they didn’t include oldies like ‘High Voltage’ and ‘Gloria’ on the record. Throw in Kevin Borich classic ‘Gonna See My Baby’, and The ‘Boys have served up new bosses CBS with a well-balanced commercial effort.
The production (Lancaster and Brewster produced) is unashamedly guitar-based and not fancy or pretentious, although some of the cover songs do come across as being a bit flat. But the Boys’ no frills style is enough to remind you that Ackadacka are Australian. While this album will hardly set the Australian music industry on its ear like AC/DC did, there’s enough potential on show to indicate that’s exactly what the Party Boys are capable of doing.
STEVE MASCORD

TO most people attending the Bloodstock Festival two years ago, describing Europe’s place as headliner as “incongruous” was an understatement. What Europe played in the 1980s does not even count as metal by its current definition; Cold Chisel were heavier.

But Europe weren’t pelted with bottles of piss or sharpened pennies. They weren’t even booed or jeered that much. Because they WERE heavy – much heavier than anyone but their loyal fans present had expected.

To listen to Joey Tempest’s Swedish superstars now is to hear what Bon Jovi may have sounded like today if New Jersey flopped, if the ballads had failed to find traction. Imagine Jon Bon Jovi playing theatres instead of stadia, still fighting Ratt and Motley Crue for ticket and album sales.

Bag Of Bones is the fourth album since Europe re-formed in 2003. The first two, Start From The Dark and Secret Society, dabbled in modern rock territory. With Last Look At Eden a couple of years back, the Swedes managed to blend the need to be relevant with the echoes of their glory days.

Bag Of Bones is another big step in that direction.

“Rags To Riches” is a bluesy, riffy, stadium rocker, “Firebox” is modern rock without the contrived abrasiveness and “My Woman, My Friend” is actually something of an epic, beginning it does with a simple piano refrain and building to the crescendo of a booming chorus.

In an apparently deliberate attempt to be as diverse as possible, the title track is an acoustic lament with a beguiling melody, “Mercy You, Mercy Me” has the sort of choppy delivery reminiscent of Last Look At Eden and the reviewer’s favourite off the entire record – which stood out like, ahem, dogs balls live last time I saw them – is “Doghouse”. There’s no reinvention of the wheel here, folks, just a rollicking slice bar-room boogie.

MOST of us have lists in our heads of “most under-rated bands”. D:A:D – Disneyland After Dark – are at the very top of mine.

I interviewed the Danes back in 1989 when they visited Australia on a promotional tour for No Fuel Left For The Pilgrims, their big American ‘breakthrough’ album. In fact, the breakthrough was extremely modest, although “Sleeping My Day Away” still gets airplay on specialist stations in the US like Sirius XM’s Hair Nation.

Like a lot of acts who have “escaped” international recognition but flourished in rich local soil – witness Powerfinger, for instance – and these lads’ artistic and creative evolution has not been sullied by the demands of suits from London or LA.. They had enough success to encourage, not enough to ruin. D:A:D craft hard rock songs that are musically almost perfect and lyrics that boast a sardonic wit that should embarrasses those of us who claim English as a first language.

Is there a better summation of this social media-obsessed world than “Winning hearts and turning heads/A simple beast that must be fed” at the start of “Breaking Them Heart By Heart”?
D:A:D are not allowed to call themselves Disneyland After Dark due to the threat of a legal suit by Disneyland itself in the late 1980s so this album title is a cheeky way around that. Dic.Nii.Lan.Daft.Erd.Ark is actually a little less even than its predecessor, Monster Philosophy, and would have perhaps been enhanced by losing a track or two. But when the Binzer brothers (singer Jesper and guitar whiz Jacob), bassist Stig Pederson and drummer Laust Sonne hit the mark, they do so spectacularly.

“A New Age Moving In” opens this platter with impressive bluster, Pederson’s two-string bass to the fore and “I Want What She Got” is a classy, brothel-creeping opening single. It’s the guitar fills that give D;A:D a wide-screen feel, something that few bands today manage aside from perhaps Foo Fighters and Metallica at their dramatic best.

“The End” is reminiscent of their heaviest, most discordant offering, 1995’s Helpyourselfish – but it still has an instantly memorable chorus.

Things go up a notch with the perfect hard rock of “Fast On Wheels”. D:A:D once wrote a song with the diametrically opposite viewpoint: “The Road Below Me”. That was about moving, this is about discovering the charms of stopping. And it’s utterly engaging, with the sort of playing we often associate with “alternative” rock and perfectly executed vocal melodies.

A LOT of people thought Dokken would end up as big as Bon Jovi: their last LP Under Lock And Keyhad tinges of greatness, but the general attitude was that they’d become a big band if only they’d quieten down guitarist George Lynch a bit.
To their credit, Dokken have gone in a diametrically opposite direction to everybody else with Back For The Attack.Rather than chase pop commerciality, the LP is longer (63 bloody minutes!) heavier and louder.. . and better than anything else they’ve done. George Lynch shines like a beacon throughout.

In the past Dokken records have showcased Don Dokken’s soaring voice. But from the opening riffs of “Kiss Of Death” to the finale chill of “Dreams Warriors”, Lynch dominates with a style that is original and diverse. It’s his first claim to be classed in the same guitar hero category as Eddie Van Halen or Yngwie Malmsteen.
At first listen, the songs sound the same. I don’t know why that’s so, because the songwriting is just as strong. There is no “Jaded Heart” or “Alone Again” but the passion of those songs is preserved. An essential buy for those who value quality unpretentious hard rock.
— STEVE MASCORD

NO matter the PR spin, this is step back for Slash from his eponymous all-star solo album of 2010. The iconic former GN’R axeman has returned to a band environment, with Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy getting second billing, drummer Brent Fitz and bassist Todd Kearns providing back-up.

The result is an album best compared to the two Slash’s Snakepit releases. It’s clear from all three albums what the top-hatted one brought to Guns N’Roses – a no-nonsense hard rock attack in comparison to Axl Rose’s epic melodrama, still evident on Chinese Democracy.

Both Apocalyptic Love and Chinese Democracy are unsatisfying for the same reason – they are estranged halves of something truly great.

In case that sounds like the musings of another miserable GN’R reunionist, here’s another reason why this reviewer sees Apocalyptic Love as Slash’s weakest album since leaving the Gunners.

While his cohorts in Slash’s Snakepit were unabashedly influenced by eighties hair metal, Kennedy’s involvement nudges this platter in the direction of modern rock – making it further removed from what we all loved about Slash in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong: if you love Alter Bridge you’ll like this. I don’t like Alter Bridge. At all.

I can understand how the soaring choruses and tightly-wound riffs push the buttons of their fans – but the buttons Desmond Child once played like a piano (mine) are impervious to their 21st century emo siren’s call.